OA protests corporate-legislative axis called ALEC

A group of about 16 Occupy Albany participants stood outside the Verizon building on State Street in the first real snow of winter to protest Verizon and other companies’ involvement in the American Legislative Exchange Council.

ALEC is a non-profit organization whose members include large corporations (such as Coca-Cola and Wal-Mart) and state legislators across the country. Occupy says that ALEC uses its connections to introduce and pass bills that benefit its member corporations.

Occupy members held signs and spoke through a “human megaphone,” led by Ryan Lennon. They attempted to walk inside the Verizon building, but a man stopped them and said they were violating fire code by standing in the building’s archway. They then chanted “We demand you separate corporations and the state” a few times, and then began to march up State Street to repeat their actions at the Albany offices of Pfizer — another ALEC member.

“We found it by chance,” said Daniel Morrissey, an OA organizer.

Morrissey added, “We’re going to target ALEC corporations in downtown Albany.” These corporations include Verizon and Pfizer as well as AT&T and Hewlett-Packard on State street; FedEx, Microsoft and IBM on Pearl Street, and Chesapeake Energy and Altria (formerly Philip Morris) on Broadway. OA’s plan was to repeat their action at the corporations’ offices, but not to go inside if building security block them.

“It’s not an intentionally arrestable situation, ” Morrissey said.

The protest was part of a larger movement, started by Oregon’s Occupy Portland, to protest ALEC and its involvement in state governments.

“Here in New York, there’s not such a history of ALEC bills,” Morrissey said, adding that only three legislators in Albany — Sen. Owen Johnson and Assemblyman Brian Kolb, all Republicans — are members of ALEC. (Correction to earlier version: Sen. Greg Ball’s staff noted that he’s not a member of ALEC, though he signed a 2009 ALEC-supported pledge to oppose “Obamacare.” Kolb and Johnson’s legislative bio pages tout their membership in ALEC.)